Welcome to On Eagle's Wings, a part of
church revival ministry.
Trust that God will use this time to
encourage you in your walk with him, whoever
you are, wherever you are.
So just sit back and listen as the
truths of God's word soak in the message
of revival.
I hope it burns in your heart.
James Stewart in his book, The Phenomena of
Pentecost, in the chapter on why there is
no revival, said never has the word revival
been so constantly on the lips of the
people of God as today.
Never in the history of the church has
such vast sums of money been spent on
organizations and promotion for the cause of revival.
Never in the history of evangelism have our
evangelists and prophets been so highly advertised.
Public relations men are spending thousands of dollars
monthly to place famous personalities before the eyes
of the church in the world.
No publicity angle known to men is left
untapped in the endeavor to publicize the preacher.
And yet we still await that mighty work
of God which will once and for all
prove to a cynical world that Jehovah is
no longer as a stranger in the land.
How tragic it is that again and again
when our hopes have been built up to
believe that revival was now in our midst,
we have discovered that it was only a
false alarm.
I wonder if in our special love and
loyalty for our denominations, James went on to
say, we must be careful not to ignore
the whole mystical body of Christ which is
composed of all true born-again blood-washed
souls.
How tragic it is to see many lonely
believers who never glory in the oneness of
the body of Christ.
The Holy Spirit has very little concern for
any denomination or group, he said.
And he went on to say the Holy
Spirit is seeking to break down the denominational
barriers that divide the saints of God.
The barriers that we so carefully erect now
will be destroyed suddenly at the coming of
the Lord.
There are no denominations in heaven.
Why should we not seek to prepare for
glory now?
No wonder George Whitfield cried out in his
day, I wish all names among the saints
of God were swallowed up in that one
name of Christian.
Are you Christ?
If so, I love you with all my
heart.
I was reading in a newspaper of one
of our denominations, major denomination of our country.
One of the men was bold enough to
write, and I'll leave out things.
I do not want to embarrass this denomination
in no way.
I've been a part of it myself and
still am in ways.
He went on to say that we are
so similar to the Pharisees of Christ's day
to reach unchurched people.
He made the comment, these comments at their
annual national evangelism conference.
And he said the denomination stands in judgment
before God for its lack of true evangelistic
zeal and concern for a dying world.
The Pharisees were our kind of people, he
went on to say.
They were big on stewardship, espoused high moral
standards, believed the scriptures and were faithful in
worship.
Isn't it strange that Jesus released his most
biting rebuke on people who were so similar
to ourselves, end of quote.
And he went on to say, just as
Christ condemned the Pharisees for their hypocrisy, he
also is calling our denomination to repentance today.
And then he said, why are we not
reaching America for Christ?
It is because we are whited sepulchers on
the outside but full of decaying bones on
the inside.
We will never know the souls that have
been shut out of heaven due to inconsistent
living, end of quote.
And then he said a couple other things.
One about being guilty of false evangelism.
He said we're at times so anxious to
get joiners that we do not spend time
to be sure the conversion experience is valid.
He said our denomination has grown indifferent to
outside people in need.
Maybe it's time that there is a voice
in the wilderness, a voice just to speak
up and say, how long are we going
to play games?
Play games with ourself?
Play games with God?
Play games at church?
When are we going to admit that we
have no power?
There's no reality.
Our lives are full of sin and self.
How long are we going to carry on
with this pretense?
We point our fingers at the Hollywood, Christianity,
the showbiz, evangelism, the money-making schemes.
We point our fingers at the evangelists that
fall, when at the same time we ourselves
are in immorality.
We have sin in our lives.
Our families are not put together.
We don't know what our kids are doing.
Our lives are one big mad rush.
How long will we play games with God?
Alexander, or excuse me, James A.
Stewart, in his book on the phenomena of
Pentecost shared some things that were pretty insightful.
One of the things that he shared was
from A.W. Tozer, and Tozer warned us,
quote, it is our belief that the evangelical
movement will continue to drift farther and farther
from the New Testament position until its leadership
passes from the self-effacing saint to the
modern religious star.
Sounds pretty close to where we're at today,
doesn't it?
Within the last quarter of a century, we
have actually seen a major shift in beliefs
and practices of evangelicals so radical as to
amount to a complete sellout, and all this
behind the cloak of fervent orthodoxy.
Tozer went on to say, until such self
-effacing men return again to spiritual leadership, we
may expect a progressive deterioration in the quality
of poplar Christianity year after year, until we
reach the point where the grieved Holy Spirit
withdraws like the Shekinah from the temple.
It is open question whether or not the
evangelical movement has sinned too long and departed
too far from God to return again to
spiritual sanctity.
May I stop and just read you a
passage from Isaiah 57, verse 15, that says,
For thus says the High and the Lofty
One that inhabited eternity, whose name is Holy.
I dwell in the high and holy place,
with Him also that is of a contrite
and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of
the humble, and to revive the heart of
the contrite ones.
We are the proud, arrogant, boastful.
We are the first church, we're the biggest,
we're the best, and all of that.
Where is God?
Where is the old-time promotion of humility,
the exaltation of the Lordship of Jesus Christ?
In reality, not just in theology, but in
the practical life, where we were when we
were honest and moral.
It's been a long time.
May I share a story with you?
A story of revival in our land, in
our day.
A story about myself and what God did
in my life.
Just a few short years ago, as a
matter of fact, it was in the spring
of 1985, I was pastoring a church up
in a western state.
Had been there about two years, and I
was going through my typical up-and-down
experience.
For a while I was hot, and then
for a while I'd just get cold.
And I was beginning to get dissatisfied with
myself.
People came and people go, and it seemed
like if the crowds were big, I was
up, and if the crowds got down, I
got down.
And I had a few other things that
would turn me cool.
And after a little bit, I began to
get dissatisfied with myself altogether, and had thought
about quitting my church, resigning.
I told the Lord that if I couldn't
have reality, then there's no use pretending.
When I was in the Air Force, I
never did like the pretending stuff.
Playing games, go out and do something that
was useless, waste time, burn up money, waste
money.
And I didn't like it in the church.
I was sincere, but there was something missing
in my life, and I didn't know what
it was.
I just couldn't put my finger on it.
Well, about the first part of the year,
a friend of mine was given an invitation
by an aunt to go down to Arizona
to a revival crusade.
And him and his wife went down there.
And while they were down there, in that
crusade, and that crusade I think went seven
weeks, they were deeply touched by God.
And they came back, and they shared what
God had done in their lives.
And I remember my pastor friend sharing with
me how God was breaking him, and was
cleansing him, was showing him things about himself,
and about pride, and in different areas.
And as he spoke, there was a hunger
in my own heart for this.
But yet there was pride, and I was
sort of saying, what are you doing preaching
at me inside?
But yet my heart was saying, this is
what you want.
This is what you're looking for.
And my pastor friend went on to share
how God was becoming so real to him.
The phoniness was fading away, and he was
learning to let God be God.
And in the areas of his church that
he'd been struggling with, he was getting victory
in those areas.
Well, we decided to pray together for revival.
I was personally wanting it for myself, but
we were agreeing to pray once a week
for revival in our churches.
And so we did.
We met every week, and we prayed.
And sometimes God would wake me up at
two or three in the morning, and I'd
get up for an hour or two, sometimes
three hours, and pray, and cry, and read
my Bible.
I was searching.
This was a deeper search than when I
first found the Lord as my Savior, and
maybe sometime later on I can share that
with you.
But this went on for several weeks, and
then finally we had some revival meetings lined
up with an evangelist from Michigan, evangelist John
Musser.
He was set up to come into my
pastor's friend's church, and then my church, and
then one other church down the road about
90 miles.
Well, when he came in, he started up
in Pastor Wessa's church, and went for eight
days.
And God began to move in an unusual
way among the people.
The very first night there were some deep
commitments to the Lord and brokenness.
One friend of mine that was in our
church was deeply affected that first night, and
sometime later on too.
I'll share about him.
But God worked that first week for eight
days, and the missionaries came in off of
an Indian reservation just north.
And they came in, and God began to
deal with them with bitterness in different areas
in their life.
And after the eight days, then they moved
down to our church.
And we went for 18 days in our
church, and the pastor down the road was
sort of hopping up and down, wondering when
the revivalist was going to finally get to
his place.
But God had a work to do, and
I think it was the 12th message.
Brother John had preached on victory, and God
the Holy Spirit that evening just broke me
before him, and showed me that I was
not living in victory.
That I was defeated, and actually I was
a bitter pastor.
Bitter against my people.
And I learned later as I began to
grow, that if I was bitter against my
people, I was really bitter against God.
And things that would that would come my
way, that I would kick at, and try
to get out of the way, and get
rid of them.
I was really just fighting against God.
Anger is really just anger against God.
And all the other sins of the flesh
was just against God, and God broke me.
And I went a few days later before
the church, and asked them to forgive me
for being bitter.
Actually I was bitter.
It started out because the people wouldn't come
out to prayer meeting and pray.
And if I might throw in a little
commercial for pastors, please pray with your pastor.
He needs your encouragement.
Wednesday night is the night that you've set
aside for prayer.
It's not just a play time, or routine
time.
It's real.
Your pastor needs you there.
But when I went in, the people just
sort of backed off.
And I grew bitter because the battle was
hard.
But I didn't have that right.
I learned as I began to grow afterwards,
that if you don't surrender your rights to
God, you take them for yourself.
And whatever you take for yourself, you corrupt
it.
Well I didn't have a right to be
bitter, but I thought I did since I
was a pastor.
I thought, well these people, they got me
in here.
They needed to pray with me.
But God broke me over that, and I
confessed it.
Well this movement of revival, and later on
I'm going to share things, as I get
into a series on the life of Moses,
I'm going to share things that God taught
me.
And I began to teach my people things
that would set us free.
And things that would give us strength and
victory during some very hard times.
The Moses series, I call it the Desert
Survival Series, is designed to give you victory.
Pastor, there is victory.
There's hope for you and your church.
That revival movement that started in April of
85, it went for seven months.
It went on to another church.
The church down the road went for two
weeks, and then it came back to another
church that was unscheduled south of us, 35
miles.
And it went for three weeks there, and
God began to cleanse.
And it went on back to my town.
I went on vacation and came back, and
Brother John was in another church in town.
And then he went to another town, and
it went on in the state for seven
months.
He finally, during the beginning, after a few
weeks, he had to move his family out.
Brought him out in a trailer.
But what I wanted to say was, this
can happen in your life.
It can happen in your church.
You can see a cleansing.
You can let go and let God just
be the God of your life.
One of the things that I discovered was
that I was trying to be the Lord
of the church.
I remember a story that I heard when
I was in Bible college about a pastor
that was trying to be the Lord of
his church.
And I heard him.
He told us the story personally.
The church was struggling along, and he was
having troubles.
And they were going to church one Sunday
morning, and he had a little neighbor girl
in the back seat, and the little girls
leaning over the front seat, watching as they
drove along.
And then finally she said, Pastor Bohr, are
you the Lord of this church?
And he said the tears just began to
swell up in his eyes, and he had
to pull off the road as the Spirit
of God convicted him that he was trying
to be the Lord of his church.
There's only one Lord.
Is he the Lord of your church, Pastor?
Is he the Lord of your life, Mr.
Deacon?
Is he the Lord of your life, Mom,
Dad, teenager?
Is he really the Lord?
Could it not be that maybe you have
struggles in your life because he is not
the Lord of your life?
Well, this movement of revival that went on
for seven months, and actually is still going
on in many areas.
One particular part of the state really got
pretty hot, reached over into another part of
the state.
There would be a lot of emotional responses
and things like that.
Some came just for the excitement of seeing
something happen.
Nothing ever happens in church as much.
Well, we were packing the place out, moved
to the city to the high school auditorium.
We had a pizza blast and fed a
whole lot of teenagers in that town, and
a lot of them got saved.
But after it all cleared, there was a
few folks that were really crucified with Christ.
They'd come to understand that they were dead,
that when they received Christ at the cross,
their life was finished, and that they were
crucified, and that was no longer them, but
Christ that lived in them.
Well, these were the truths that were first
taught in the early church, and somehow or
another, the crucified life is being left out.
I think we have moved over to another
gospel.
I heard of a meeting a few weeks
ago, a major meeting with many of the
major leaders in the country, and they were
talking about how we have really a different
gospel today.
A gospel of easy believism, and it would
be heresy then if it's another gospel of
repentance of your sin and letting Jesus be
the Lord of your life.
But as the movement went through the state,
every place there was a few that were
deeply touched by God, and they were left
different people.
Now, you may not have this need.
You may be okay.
You may have everything in order.
You may know that your sins are forgiven,
that Christ is your Savior, and you're living
the Spirit-filled life, and that's fine.
Would you pray for those around you and
those that are listening to this broadcast that
don't really know that you might be an
encouragement to them?
You see, I was talking to a pastor
this morning who just got back from a
conference, and when he got back, he found
out.
He called me, and he said, the fat
had hit the fire.
Boy, when he got in, they were going
to get rid of him.
One man had got up during the Wednesday
night prayer meeting and started to state how
the pastor was teaching heresy, and he went
over a couple things, and there was a
visiting family there, and the woman got up
and said, you're wrong.
What you're saying is not right.
The pastor's okay, and there was some immorality
in that church, and a couple other things,
and he just called for some counsel and
advice, and I visited with him and shared
some things with him.
But you know, this is going on all
over the country.
Any church that's going to be intent on
serving Jesus Christ is going to be under
an attack, an attack from Satan.
Don't give up.
Hang in there.
As we get into our series on Moses,
there's a scripture that says in Exodus 19,
for you have seen what I did unto
the Egyptians, and how I bear you on
eagles' wings and brought you unto myself.
Would you be willing to let God bear
you on eagles' wings?
You know what it is about the eagle
that makes him so appealing to us?
It's his size and strength and beauty, and
not only that, the eagle can soar for
hours on the end up in the sky
without any effort at all, hardly.
You know how he stays up there?
Well, he sails on the turbulent winds.
He's able to stay up by riding on
those turbulent winds, and we as Christians need
to learn the art of sailing on the
turbulent winds of life.
And this series that we have for Moses
is designed to help you do that.
Now, this series is to develop our discernment.
If I might turn with you over to
Hebrews 5, 12 through 14, and we won't
have much time this morning to get into
this series, and next week, Lord willing, we'll
take off and give you some introduction in
it.
But in Hebrews 5, verse 12 and 14,
the scripture says, For when the time you
ought to be teachers, you have need that
one teach you again, which be the first
principles of the oracles of God, and are
become such as have need of milk and
not of strong meat.
If I might stop here and say, we
have weak leadership in our churches today.
Weak leadership.
Men are in positions that should not be
in positions.
If they've had immoral relations in their life,
it weakens the church.
If they're not leaders at home, but there's
a way to learn to be strong.
There's a way to make things right.
And this program, hopefully, will be an encouragement
to you personally for our area.
There's ways of finding victory, problems in your
church.
There's ways of solving them in your life,
in the life of your teenagers.
And we're hoping this program will be a
benefit to you.
By the way, the story of what happened
in the church that I pastored has been
put in written form.
And for those of you that are listening
to KKLL, I'll leave a few copies here
at the station.
And you can drop by and pick one
up.
It's not a real professional copy.
I have a few of the thousands of
professional copies that were made.
I have a few left.
The story is sort of old since it
happened in 85.
But a printer printed up some lesser quality
that I have a few thousand of that
he gave me a few months ago.
And I'll leave some here so you can
read on that story of what God did
in our church.
Pastor, let me encourage you to get one
and read it.
I'm for you.
If you're preaching the Word of God and
you know that what I'm saying, many of
these things, you might see them in your
own church in your life.
But anyway, the scripture went on to say,
For everyone that useth milk is unskillful in
the word of righteousness, for he is a
babe, but strong meat belongeth to them that
are of full age, even to those who
by reason of use have their senses exercised
to discern both good and evil.
Can you discern?
Are you able to discern what is right
and what is wrong?
Are you willing to stand up and say,
Things are not right in my life.
I cannot teach this Sunday School class.
Pastor, are you willing to stand up and
say, I cannot.
I cannot, Pastor, until I get something taken
care of in my life.
Can I have some time off?
Pastor, you can't go out and preach Sunday
morning if you're not right with your wife.
You just can't do it.
The Holy Spirit won't let us get away
with that.
The Bible says in Ephesians 14, that we
henceforth be no more children tossed to and
fro, carried about by every wind of doctrine,
by the slight of men and cunning craftiness,
whereby they lie in wait to deceive.
Oh, the church is being tossed to and
fro.
We are being slammed against by Satan, and
there are some things that we can do
to learn how to have victory.
There are some ways that God has given
to us, and we'll be sharing these things.
These things will teach us how to be
desert dwellers.
The Bible says they thirsted not when he
led them through the desert.
God bless you, my friend, as you seek
to be a desert dweller.
The one that lives in the desert is
able to live in victory, and live without
defeat.
Would you let him bear you on eagles'
wings?
Be still, my child, be still and know,
you are my own.
I love you so.
I paid the price on Calvary, and gave
you faith to come to me.
And I will lift you up with wings
as an eagle.
You'll not be tired.
I'll not let you fall.
And I will lift you up with wings
as an eagle.
You'll not be tired.
I'll not let you fall.
Sometimes you stray so far from me, and
in the dark you cannot see.
But in the time of deep despair, I
hear your voice in silent prayer.
And I will lift you up with wings
as an eagle.
You'll not be tired.
I'll not let you fall.
And I will lift you up with wings
as an eagle.
You'll not be tired.
I'll not let you fall.